


Bad Things Happen

by FaintingInCoils



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 07:22:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15858927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaintingInCoils/pseuds/FaintingInCoils
Summary: Because how could they not, with this lot?A collection of (probably unconnected) TMA prompt fills for Bad Things Happen Bingo on Tumblr.  Chapters will be in alphabetical order by prompt.





	1. Bloodstained Clothes

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to swing by my Tumblr and tell me which square to fill out next!
> 
> faintedincoils.tumblr.com/tagged/badthingshappenbingo

“Jon? Jon, are you okay? I didn’t think I bumped into you that--is that _blood_ on your coat?”

“What?” 

“Is-- that-- blood?” He hadn’t realized that Martin’s voice could get any higher than it had been at his first mention of blood, but so it could. “Is it _yours_?”

Was it? Jon couldn’t be sure. A certain level of pain had become a constant in his life as of late, and he didn’t always bother to categorize just where each bit of it was coming from. He knew that his hand was wet where it was clutched to his side, and the fabric of his coat was scratchy and sticky and slick beneath his fingers. He tilted his head to look down and caught a glimpse of red before the world began to spin around him.

“Ah, yes,” Jon said, faintly. “It would appear so.” He could feel his legs going weak and watery. “I, ah… I think I’d better--” He managed two halting steps towards his desk before beginning to pitch forward. His hands shot out automatically to break the fall, and oh, yes, _now_ he could feel that he was bleeding. The heat was leaching from out beneath his skin much faster now. He expected there’d be quite the puddle surrounding him soon, and wondered if he was close enough to Gertrude’s hidey-hole for it to catch some of the runoff. “I think I need to lie down.”

“Jon? Jon! Oh, you can’t do this to me now, you can’t...” The world shook around him as his eyes closed. “Basira, Melanie, I need help!”


	2. Villainous Rescue

He’d promised not to go off on his own and risk the whole mission, and he’d meant it. Tim wanted the plan to succeed, wanted The Stranger’s headquarters and supernatural minions reduced to so much rubble and ash and smoking plastic. But he’d seen an opening he was certain he could take advantage of, so he’d gone for it.

He’d been wrong, and now the world was punishing him for it. Big surprise, that. He was good at attracting punishment.

He wondered how long he’d been out cold. Wondered if anyone was going to bring him food or water. Wondered if he’d see his coworkers again. If they’d be the ones to kill him, unaware or uncaring that he’d be collateral. 

Time passed without food or water or people of any sort, even fake. Tim stared at each wall of his prison for what could have been minutes or hours. He spotted a water stain that looked a bit like a cat on one wall and switched to just staring at that instead. Sat there for a very long time, imagining what the cat’s purr would sound like.

From behind him came the sound of a creaking door. The door hadn’t creaked when they’d shoved him into the room, and besides that, he could still see the door he’d come through. It was closed. Tim’s heart began to race.

“Come to watch me suffer, then?” he asked. “Acquired a taste for it the last time?” 

Footsteps behind him, then to his side. A figure stepped between Tim and his wall cat. It was not the tall man with the blond curls. Now it was a vaguely familiar, statuesque black woman wearing a smart teal pantsuit. She looked unthreatening except for her perfectly shaped, dagger-pointed nails, which were painted the same nauseating green-yellow of the hallways Tim had been trapped in. Tim knew with utter certainty that if there’d been a mirror around, those hands would be far too long, horrifically knobby and bulbous and _sharp_.

“That’s a new look,” Tim said. A memory stirred at the back of his mind, Jon talking about a real estate agent gone missing from his office. He hadn’t been paying him much attention at the time, but she’d had a name… “You’re Helen Richardson then?”

Its sigh was like smoke. “Yes,” it said. “I’m certainly not Michael any longer.” It bent down to face him but the movement was all wrong, flopping forward at the waist like its skin was filled with custard rather than flesh and bones. “And I’m not here to watch you suffer, though I can if you’d like.”

“What are you here for then?”

The thing which was not Helen smiled at him. Its teeth were lovely. If Tim had met the real Helen a year ago he’d have been smitten by that smile. Now he thought of Sasha and felt ill.

“I’m here to retrieve you,” it said. 

“Why?”

“The Archivist asked me to. I’m doing him a favor.”

“What? Why?”

“Because, he… I’m trying to become his friend. He’s the only one who might understand me, if only he’d try. I would like for him to be… well disposed to conversation. Bringing you back to him will aid me in my goals.”

Tim didn’t know if he would survive being trapped by the Circus, but the idea of going back into that hellish maze of mirrors and shifting colors made him break into a cold sweat. He wouldn’t even have Martin by his side this time. “And if I don’t want to go?”

Helen frowned for just a moment, then shrugged. “We all have to do things we don’t want to sometimes. I’m taking you back to the Archivist. You can follow me of your own volition, or I can carry you.” It reached out, tapped one nail against Tim’s cheek, and dragged its finger down to his jaw. His flesh parted in its wake and he couldn’t stop himself whimpering. “I don’t think you’d like that way very much, but it’s your choice.”

Saying no was tempting--he was so tired, and here was a chance to end it all--but not as tempting as the chance of bringing The Circus crashing down. Rest or revenge. There wasn’t much choice there, even if he did hate to cooperate with monsters.

“Fine,” Tim whispered. “Let’s go. And good luck with Jon. You deserve each other.”


End file.
